Saturday, May 16, 2015
The Other Side of the Wind
by Orson Welles, 1975
Welles's late, nearly completed and never fully released, masterpiece, the Other Side of the Wind,
looks like it may soon get to be seen by a larger public. I've seen
about forty five minutes of it, between a few bits on television by way
of the AFI Tribute to Welles, and various pieces that were
surreptitiously uploaded to YouTube. My friend, Jennifer Martinez, a
film editor, was hired by Showtime a few years ago to evaluate
the footage that was stored in LA, which she personally removed from
refrigerated storage, slowly brought up to the proper temperature to be
handled, and copied for further assemblage. She did this with a lot of
free help that she got from film students, whom she recruited with
fliers that she put up on billboards at USC and UCLA. Sasha Welles (the
name he goes by) was also there, though it sounds like he mostly
gossiped about his youth and kept an eye on things for his aunt, Oja
Kodar. Despite Jennifer's positive report to Showtime, it all
came to naught, apparently because of interference from Beatrice Welles,
Orson's daughter with Poala Mori, who, according to French Law, owns
the negative, even though Orson left all materials relating to the Other Side of the Wind
to Oja (the negative was stored in Paris.) Recently another deal was
reached, thanks in large part to Frank Marshall, a well known producer,
who as a youth was employed on the Other Side of the Wind as a clapper operator (for which he is credited as Associate Producer on the film.) Unfortunately, Showtime
now wants to see edited sequences using newly struck footage from the
original negative, for which the new producers of the film are
requesting monetary contributions from film fans through one of those
new "crowd sourcing" internet sites Indiegogo. Here's hoping that they finally manage to get this work in theaters and on screens where it belongs.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment